9.3.
ruene Kakadu
Der
e e ee ete e eeene.
box 15/3
Ausschmet aus:
Landurd, Londen)
240K1 2913
vom:
BETWEEN SUNSET
AND DAWN.“
POWERFUL ACTING AT THE
VAUDEVILLE,
Some particularly fine acting and some that
was particularly noisy marked the performance
at the Vaudeville Theatre last night, when
Messrs. Norman MeKinnel and Frederick
Whelen presented a double bill that had the
supreme merit of being something off the
beaten track.
The very fine acting came in the first piece,
Between Sunset and Dawn,? by Hermon
Ould—a play in four scenes of life in and
around a“ doss house in South London.
Low life on the stage seldom rings sincerely,
but in this case the crapulous atmosphere of
sordid misery came right across the footlights,
just as it was said once of Sir Arthur Pinero
that lie brought the scent of new-mown hay
into the theatre. The story is really that of
* The Fugitive? translated into miserable
surroundings. Tothe“ doss house,’ which big
Jim Harris looks after at night for his simian
old möther comes Liz Higgins, seeking shelter.
She has run away from Bill Higgins, a
pal“ of Jim, because he knocks her about
and treats her generally in a brutal way.
Jim has never seen Liz Higgins before,
though he has heard about her as being
bit of class. He is a big, slow, lumbering
man who has never had anything to do with
women, but he takes an immediate fancy to
Liz. To him, in her shawl and battered hat,
her face is the sudden revelation of woman.
So that when Higgins comes in furious search
of his wife big Jim knocks him about a bit
for a change. Then when the husband is out
of the way he proposes that they shall live to¬
gether, and is almost eloquent in his new¬
found passion. She consents, but the pride
of being a +respectable woman is strong
upon her, and she steals back to Bill Higgins.
That individual, although he wants her back
badly, is inflamed now by jealousy, and she
flies from him again and back to Jim.
SIGNIFICANT ACTING.
It is here that we have a magnificant pfece
si¬
of acting. They discuss their miserable
tion, and we see that Jim## imm
##alowe and distmstfel-that she wen
her husband at all. There have bei
before that Jim is alqueer fellow. Now
thie stress of his first emotion we seem to see
his mind snap.
He realises the miserable
position of the woman, thrown out again by
her drunken brute of a husband, and now sus¬
pected a little, against his will, by himself,
the man who wanted to pretect her. One can
see the craziness working in his face. There
is ouly one way out with a woman with her
back to the wall, and he supplies it. He picks
up a knife from the table and stabs her as
she gives him his first caress from woman.
Mr. Norman McKinnel was splendid as the
bemused Jim, and Miss May Blayney as Liz
Higgins gave a piece of restrained, perfect
character acting, with every little point made,
such as is rarely seen on the stage. In the
final scene the madness gradually creeping
over Jim's face andthe bewilderment and then
terror over hers were very finely rendered.
Mrs. Ada King as a sort of female Caliban,
keeper of the doss-house,“ and Mr. Edmond
Breon as the cowardly and blustering Bill
Higgins, were both excellent. The piece itself
was very warmly received. It secmed a pity
that the author could find no way out except
the table knife, but that was how poor Jim
saw the situation. In a way, it is too much
to ask us to believe that the situation would
have turnell Jim’s head, but Mr. MeKinnel
certainly realised it on the stage.
The sccond piece was Arthur Schnitzler’s
brilliant“ grotesque““ The Green Cockutoo,
and from low life in Lomton“tödäy Ve Vers¬
taken to low
ruene Kakadu
Der
e e ee ete e eeene.
box 15/3
Ausschmet aus:
Landurd, Londen)
240K1 2913
vom:
BETWEEN SUNSET
AND DAWN.“
POWERFUL ACTING AT THE
VAUDEVILLE,
Some particularly fine acting and some that
was particularly noisy marked the performance
at the Vaudeville Theatre last night, when
Messrs. Norman MeKinnel and Frederick
Whelen presented a double bill that had the
supreme merit of being something off the
beaten track.
The very fine acting came in the first piece,
Between Sunset and Dawn,? by Hermon
Ould—a play in four scenes of life in and
around a“ doss house in South London.
Low life on the stage seldom rings sincerely,
but in this case the crapulous atmosphere of
sordid misery came right across the footlights,
just as it was said once of Sir Arthur Pinero
that lie brought the scent of new-mown hay
into the theatre. The story is really that of
* The Fugitive? translated into miserable
surroundings. Tothe“ doss house,’ which big
Jim Harris looks after at night for his simian
old möther comes Liz Higgins, seeking shelter.
She has run away from Bill Higgins, a
pal“ of Jim, because he knocks her about
and treats her generally in a brutal way.
Jim has never seen Liz Higgins before,
though he has heard about her as being
bit of class. He is a big, slow, lumbering
man who has never had anything to do with
women, but he takes an immediate fancy to
Liz. To him, in her shawl and battered hat,
her face is the sudden revelation of woman.
So that when Higgins comes in furious search
of his wife big Jim knocks him about a bit
for a change. Then when the husband is out
of the way he proposes that they shall live to¬
gether, and is almost eloquent in his new¬
found passion. She consents, but the pride
of being a +respectable woman is strong
upon her, and she steals back to Bill Higgins.
That individual, although he wants her back
badly, is inflamed now by jealousy, and she
flies from him again and back to Jim.
SIGNIFICANT ACTING.
It is here that we have a magnificant pfece
si¬
of acting. They discuss their miserable
tion, and we see that Jim## imm
##alowe and distmstfel-that she wen
her husband at all. There have bei
before that Jim is alqueer fellow. Now
thie stress of his first emotion we seem to see
his mind snap.
He realises the miserable
position of the woman, thrown out again by
her drunken brute of a husband, and now sus¬
pected a little, against his will, by himself,
the man who wanted to pretect her. One can
see the craziness working in his face. There
is ouly one way out with a woman with her
back to the wall, and he supplies it. He picks
up a knife from the table and stabs her as
she gives him his first caress from woman.
Mr. Norman McKinnel was splendid as the
bemused Jim, and Miss May Blayney as Liz
Higgins gave a piece of restrained, perfect
character acting, with every little point made,
such as is rarely seen on the stage. In the
final scene the madness gradually creeping
over Jim's face andthe bewilderment and then
terror over hers were very finely rendered.
Mrs. Ada King as a sort of female Caliban,
keeper of the doss-house,“ and Mr. Edmond
Breon as the cowardly and blustering Bill
Higgins, were both excellent. The piece itself
was very warmly received. It secmed a pity
that the author could find no way out except
the table knife, but that was how poor Jim
saw the situation. In a way, it is too much
to ask us to believe that the situation would
have turnell Jim’s head, but Mr. MeKinnel
certainly realised it on the stage.
The sccond piece was Arthur Schnitzler’s
brilliant“ grotesque““ The Green Cockutoo,
and from low life in Lomton“tödäy Ve Vers¬
taken to low